Post-Prototype

There were plenty of useful comments about the website itself, as well as its content.

There are two main theses:

First, Caesar had to be diplomatic in order to keep himself in Gaul, and to position himself so he could be successful militarily.  His need to be diplomatic lessens greatly over time, which corresponds with how many legions he had at a time.  Something I ought to add is how being diplomatic involves the attempt to avoid battle.

Second, there are some theories about how and when the books were written.  Either they were done each winter in camp, or published together around 51 B.C.  There is even a theory that both happened, which was plausible because of the rift between Caesar and the men in the Senate.  By using the graphs, I think that it is more likely that they were written within a particular context during the year, which would explain why on earth there is a section in the middle of Book 6 which talks about the cultural differences between the Gauls and Germans.
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It was also mentioned that I could use my map for each page to show where Caesar was in that particular book.  Such will be simple, and should work out.

I had some comments about the website being both too wordy and not enough.  If this thing is to exist on the internet, I think that being as efficient as possible with any writing is paramount.  Get the point across, show the evidence, move on.  This is supposed to be scholarly and public, and the public doesn't have the attention span needed, so I'll work on a balance of these things.

It still feels strange, going through all of these books and articles, since I still haven't found any source with a particular emphasis on diplomacy in Gaul.

So, the goal currently is to get the other pages up, Secundus through Octavus, then work on the introduction page, and also a conclusion page.  Convenience for the website will come later.

Cheers,
Dominic Martyne

LAUNCH

O Di, the mistakes I have made in coding.

I tried the methods shown in class, but there was something wrong.

I attempted to use only Notepad with File Zilla, but something was wrong.

Yet, as always, the internet has saved me.  I have not been able to upload much to the website as of yet, but it is bloody functional, and I'm happy for it!

http://dmmartyne.iweb.bsu.edu/

Now that I have the form down, the graphs put in, I need to plug in my text and references, which is much, much simpler.  However, the internet is meant for quick browsing, for looking at something side-to-side than left-to-right, top-to-bottom.  I've played with hyperlinks a little so far with references to Wikipedia and the Internet Classics Archive, and what I plan to do is to have clear links at the first mention of a particular tribe which leads to the relevant Wikipedia page about who they were, allowing for a quicker glance, and non-linear progression on the website.

The libri are all on the left, so one could go into any book to see the textual graph of Caesar first, followed by some contextualization, then down farther to the more technical aspects of how Caesar acted with the Gauls and Germans.

Flailing About in XML

Good evening!

I haven't any maps or textual graphs to show for now, but I've spent a sizable portion of this weekend working out how to do XML properly with the Free CSS templates that were shown in class last Odin's Day.  To help anyone who is unclear on just about anything regarding XHTML, here are a few links:

This is File Zilla

Here is Notepad++

Here is a YouTube link to what has saved me a bunch of time with many great short videos about how to set up your websites, especially with multiple pages...which I thought I found figure out on my own.  And didn't.

Combine these three things and there should be no trouble uploading anything for our projects!

One of the most salient things about using websites is how one can navigate them in a different manner than left to right, top to bottom.  The notion of sideways movement will have to come in in a big way for what I'm doing.  Much of the context of De Bello Gallico is outside of what I'm looking at, so there will be many clear links to relevant informational pages.  Luckily, Wikipedia's Classics stuff is superlative.

Valete,

Dominic Martyne

P.S.

Hagfish

Maps of Gaul

Cives,

One of the most interesting things about De Bello Gallico is that it gives a surprisingly concise definition of where things are in relation to each other.  Taking the idea from the Etruscans, they used straight lines, mountain ranges, and rivers to define territory.

Here are some useful maps I have been able to find:

With the end of the semester surprisingly close already, I believe that any map work will have to be done last.  What I think will be useful will be an interactive one based on the first map up there, which shows Caesar's movements quite well.  Also, it shows a useful time stamp for his movements, making his eight-year campaign much easier to understand.

Now that Voyant is working for me again, here's Book 5:

The end of this book is quite interesting.  Like previous chapters, it ends with a Roman victory, and generally follows the pattern of Caesar being mentioned, at least relative to the beginning and end.  However, even though the book ends with a Roman victory, the stage is set for all of Gaul to rise up against the Romans.  Book 6, however, follows a different pattern for Caesar:

Here we have the largest difference in any other book thus far.  In the middle is a long section on the culture and government of Gaul and Germany.  It focuses on how often they wage war, the social power of the druids, as well as their religion, which Caesar put into Roman terms.  Now, this is based on a conversation I had some years ago, but here Caesar talks about how these people worship Mercury moreso than other Gods, and the best explanation as to how he came to that conclusion is that he is referring to Odin, or rather, Wodin.

The Romans get bloodied here, albeit it is the loss of two cohorts, but even at the end here Caesar finds a way to come out on top.  Both the Senones and Carnutes betrayed Caesar, were defeated, and the instigator of the conspiracy was put to death, "after the custom of our ancestors."

Edit: I just had a funny thought about this strange interpolation of cultural information about the Gauld and Germans.  I think that Caesar is trying to make himself look better at the end to keep the pattern going.  Now, why do I think this?  Well, earlier in this life, Caesar held several religious positions, one of which was that of pontifex maximus, or "greatest priest."  The Roman calendar, before Caesar changed it, was a mess, and there was an entire month that could be shoved in whenever one needed extra time to do something...like win an election.  He had to be conscious of this, and the sudden dip is explained by the notion of him "buying time."  How the next book falls out might affirm this.

There is not much left for these charts, and the situation will only get worse from here, but, while it is the case that this chapter is different from every other because that pattern is missing, it would seem that here Caesar only has the heights or is not mentioned at all, which might suggest what he thought about his successes during this particular year in campaign.

More to come shortly,

Dominic Martyne

Crossing the English Channel

Salvete,

Here is Liber Quartus in context.

Here, there are two groups, the Usipetes and Tenchtheri, who are driven out of Germany by the Suevi.  One thing not conveyed well by this chart is that the Usipetes and Tenchtheri figure prominently through the book, until they are defeated in Chapter 15.  These two groups are referred to as "they" in the text, so here is a good example of the kind of limitations one might expect from the use of just such a graph.  Although, one ought to wonder whether or not these two groups would surpass Caesar in relative frequency.  As such, however, they are the central enemy for almost 40% of this Liber. 

The Suevi are the central enemies at about the 75% mark, and are defeated by Caesar in Chapter 27.  As the book concludes, Caesar moves into Britain, where they have designs to fight the Romans on account of their lesser numbers.  The following chart will give greater context to the end of Quartus.

The following chart involves a conspiracy to surprise the Romans as they come back to the European mainland from Britain for winter quarters.  The Morini, seeing just some 300 Romans, surround and work to defeat them, but are scattered when the Roman cavalry comes to their aid.

It is worth noting that this chapter ends with 2 of the British clans giving captives to Caesar, the diplomatic currency of the day, and he received a special commendation from the Senate itself and the end here.

Again, as in previous chapters, the trend is for Caesar to be mentioned the least at the beginning, yet the most at the end.  In the middle he is mentioned some, but then, around the 3/4 mark, he is mentioned very little, only to fly into ascendance towards the end of the book.

The trend stands, and here would seem to be the highest point in the war for Caesar, given that he received a special commendation from the Senate.  Note, however, that this was the year in which Pompey Magnus and Marcus Lucinius Crassus, the other two parts of the "first triumvirate," were Consuls.  This might explain the particular triumph of Caesar at the end of this book.

Until next time, Valete,

Dominic Martyne

Riding High in Gaul

Salevete,

Continuing the visual representation of textual data as above, here is the chart for Book 2 of Caesar's Gallic War:

Like Book 1, the trend continues here that, as a chapter concludes, Caesar's name is mentioned more and more.  In particular, this chapter ends with the declaration that all of Gaul was subdued at the end of his second year in Gaul.  Here seems to be how Caesar approaches his texts when he succeeds, as he did early on in the war, but the question becomes: does this change when the war suddenly has several fronts?

Liber Tertius has many facets to it, and here is a chart of the beginning of it.  In context, Gaul seems pacified, but Galba and his legion is are surprised by the Veragri, Seduni, and Nantuates.  They hold out within a town, and only survive because of a surprise sally they made out of the town.  The Veneti hold prominently as agitators of this war, but the trend for Caesar still holds.  However, more charts are needed to show where Caesar is in relation with other foes in the book.

It is around Chapter 16 of this book that the Veneti are defeated.  The book only being 29 chapters in length, it makes sense that they disappear a short while after the halfway point of the book.  That this corresponds with the highest relative frequency of Caesar in the chapter can only be purposeful.  The following chart concerns another part of this war of many fronts.

Thus far, there has not been a single Roman mentioned more times than Caesar, but here Publius Crassus does very well to take over Aquitania, which is the area of southwestern France.  That the man features so prominently here might be worth looking into if the man not only survives the 8-year war, but also if he succeeds back in Rome with Caesar.  The final chart for Tertius concerns the end of the chapter, which again ends with the pacification of Gaul.

The chapter itself concludes with Caesar defeating these two groups of Gauls who, believing they are the last great hope for the Gallic people, attack the Romans, only to be defeated.  Like before, the pattern is for Caesar to be mentioned least in the beginning, but then most at the end.  Here, P. Crassus did so well fighting the Gauls that he was mentioned more times than Caesar himself, but so far the pattern holds.

So far my theory holds that there is something going on here stylistically, but there are still 4 books that were written by Caesar to be considered, and one not written by him.

There will shortly be more graphs about the following libris.

Valete,

Dominic Martyne

Divided into Three Parts

Fratres Sorores,

I had hopes for using TextArc as a way of representing De Bello Gallico, but the only version of it available through the program is in Latin.  That doesn't help, and I cannot for the life of me find out where on their website, textarc.org, one can launch the application and input a file of text for analysis.  Unless someone can give me the link to input data, then TextArc is a wash for me.

However, Voyant has turned up some interesting data for the first book of De Bello Gallico, as can be seen above. This might be interesting to look at over the course of each of the books, and see what the macroscopic trend is regarding the tribes that Caesar encounters, then how often that tribe is mentioned throughout the book. However, this chart lacks some context. In its simplest form, Caesar entered Transalpine Gaul on the invitation of the Aedui, because the Helvetii had left Germany with every person in the tribe. They burned their houses and crops behind them, so they had no choice but to move south and cause trouble to the Gauls. It is worth noting that Caesar's first year in Gaul was very successful, and the fact that he defeats the Helvetii around Chapter 30 in the first book. The fact that the uses of Caesar's name peaks at around the 3/5 point in the book, and also that the Helvetii practically disappear from there suggest that his name should most be associated with the defeat of the Helvetii, but also that his name be associated with the Aedui, given that he preserved the fraternal ties between them and Rome. It is worth noting also that both names were used the most when the Helvetii were defeated. However, by the end of the book, Caesar's name reigns supreme.

I think that it would be most prudent to separate the project into 8 links that analyze different parts of the text in a similar fashion, each with a chapter overview, as well as useful interpretive information from the secondary literature, possibly about how it affects Caesar's march on Rome and his diplomatic approach to both.

As for the project's focus on Caesar's use of diplomacy, with the graphs will be major decision points in De Bello Gallico, with an explanation about why such and such decision was important, as well as the context within which Caesar chose to not use the sword. With this data, I plan to have some simple maps made up of where peoples and armies are in Gaul, maybe a before map and an after map to show how the terrain of Gaul changed because of the events within the book.

I think that the tools made available via digital scholarship will help explain some of the trends in each book that cannot be visible without the data mining tools available through programs like Voyant.  These frequency maps take little time to make, so the only issue will be to go through each book, and then identifying which foes are worth frequency'ing.

Valete,

Dominic Martyne